As the infrastructure of our country is called upon to provide increasing services, we will find that the quality of life we all enjoy will suffer. Advances in technology must be used to alleviate additional stress on the environment. The natural cleaning processes of the earth are insufficient to compensate for an ever-increasing burden placed on them to regenerate clean air and water.
A major problem associated with effluent disposal and treatment is the pollution of surface water and groundwater. The contamination by viruses, bacteria, nutrients, and heavy metals from effluent released into the lakes, rivers, streams, and bays of Florida is a major environmental problem facing the state. Inasmuch as the supply of water is limited by rainfall, its quality and quantity must be protected in order to provide for the ever-increasing demand.
In the past, effluent has been disposed of by a variety of means including deepwell injection; spraying on crops, fields, and golf courses; and by releasing both raw and treated effluent into available bodies of water. All of these methods have caused, or are suspected of causing, deterioration in the quality of the available potable and/or recreational water. The increasing influx of viruses, bacteria, nutrients, and heavy metals can overburden the ecosystem, causing undesirable plant growth, disruption of the normal hydrologic cycle, depletion of the oxygen supply and proliferation of disease-causing agents.
Modern secondary and tertiary treatment facilities produce a high grade of treated water, the disposal of which can be burdensome. If this water is moved to evaporation ponds, it immediately begins to deteriorate in quality. Deep well injection of this high quality effluent is problematic because of the unknown ramifications of placing this material into an environment where nature is totally unprepared to cope. A very real danger is that most facilities that are allowed to use this technique will not have a backup system to contain or dispose of effluent during those periods when the facility does not fully comply with governmental regulations. The effluent must be continually disposed. Spraying of effluent into the air introduces a potential health risk from airborne contaminants.
Therefore, with the ever-expanding population and commensurate increase in wastewater production, there is an urgent need to identify effective means of effluent treatment and disposal which can return large volumes of treated effluent to the environment with a minimum of adverse effects. The first view inches of soil provide the first line of defense in the purification of water being returned to the ecosystem after mankind has diverted this resource for its own use. This invention is intended to ensure that properly treated effluent is returned to the ecosystem through this layer at an optimum rate which is dictated by characteristics of the soil.